Less than a week after he announced that he would be seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio just ran his presidential campaign off the road and into an immigration reform canal.
When Rubio won his historic 2010 Senate race over former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, the Outback Steakhouse-loving Rubio instantly catapulted himself to the front of line of prospective 2016 Republican presidential candidates.During his Senate campaign, and in the first two years of his Senate career, Rubio was very hawkish on immigration, standing firm being completely against any form of amnesty for illegal aliens.
Here is a video interview I conducted with Rubio in February 2009, several months before he announced his Senate run, where he stood his pro-legal immigration ground.
Do you think the 2nd Amendment will be destroyed by the Biden Administration?(2)
After receiving incredible pushback from his constituents, as well as from just about the entire nationwide conservative grassroots for his co-sponsorship and support of the dreaded “Gang of 8” pro-amnesty Senate immigration bill that President Obama himself said he supported, Rubio began to walk back his support for the Obama-supported bill.
Like I said, Rubio has all but apologized for his Senate immigration bill, but now it seems as if the hopes have been dashed of those Americans, who support legal immigration, and have been willing to give Rubio a second chance on immigration reform.Rubio appeared on Spanish-language TV network, Univision, and made the following less-than hawkish immigration reform comments about repealing Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) :
“I believe DACA is important. It can’t be terminated from one moment to the next, because there are already people benefiting from it… “But yes, it is going to have to end. It can’t be the permanent policy of the United States, and I don’t think that’s what they’re asking either. I think everyone prefers immigration reform.”
Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who was conducting the interview with Rubio asked:
Rubio answered that DACA will end only when a legislative substitute with the exact same or similar policy prescriptions—a legislative amnesty for illegal alien minors—is implemented. He also said in Spanish that, if elected president, he believes that America cannot deport illegal aliens here in the country right now, and he expects a legislative solution will be implemented that essentially has all the parts of the massively controversial “Gang of Eight” bill that he would pass piece-by-piece.“But then, to clarify, you would put an end to DACA once immigration reform is approved, but what would happen, Senator, if there is no immigration reform; would you cancel DACA anyway?”
Rubio’s response:
“Well, at some point it is going to have to end, that is to say, it can’t continue being the permanent policy of the United States…I believe, if I become President, it is going to be possible to achieve immigration reform. It is not going to be comprehensive, that is to say, it is not going to all be in one massive bill. We already tried that a few years ago. We’ve seen there isn’t political support for it and I think we’ve wasted a lot of time in this process, when we could have made progress through the steps I’ve advocated.
Rubio added:
Any sitting Republican president that undoes President Obama’s executive amnesty orders will fuel the Democrat narrative that ‘all’ Republicans are anti-Hispanic, and are hell-bent in deporting them back to their native countries.“Unfortunately, a lot has been spent with that, it’s become an even more controversial subject, more difficult to make progress on, but I’m still saying it’s important to modernize our system and that means improving the way we enforce in the future, modernizing the immigration system so that it isn’t as costly and bureaucratic, and we have to deal with the 12 million human beings who are here and no one, no one is advocating a plan to deport 12 million people, so that topic has to be dealt with as well.”
We all know that Republicans are not racist, nor do they want to deport all Hispanics.
Rubio’s makes a some very good points in his remarks, but who in their right mind would make such a comments during what many expect will be a very contentious 2016 Republican presidential primary race?
Even if legislation is passed by the Republican-led Congress, and then signed by a Republican president, the stage would be set for an all-out “Remember the Alamo” political immigration reform gunfight between the pro-Amnesty for illegal aliens lobby, and those who oppose it.
Historically, immigration reform fights work against Republicans.
Expect Sens. Ted Cruz (TX), Rand Paul (KY), and Gov. Bobby Jindal, as well as other pro-legal immigration proponents to take advantage of Rubio’s immigration reform comments.Rubio just lost the edge.
